YOUNG, ADAM [SSNE 7584]

Surname

YOUNG

First name

ADAM

Nationality

SCOT

Text source

In the 1650s, Adam Young, a free-trooper, was elevated to the position of furrier and quartermaster by Patrick Gordon because he could speak the Polish language, but also because his parents were Scots: ‘In the morning I mustered them and divided them into fyles, dealing the sick and weake men equally among the files. I made Pawl Banser, who had been a quartermaster under the Sweds, wachtmaster; Adam Young, who had been a freetrowper, being of Scots parents and haveing the Polls language, I made forier or quarterm-r; Elias Funk and William Rundt, who had been corporalls, in the same charge, and the lyklyest and sharpest like men to be fileleaders. I gave the musquets to these who were best able to cary them; and giveing them orders and injunctions how to behave themselves, I marched in some better order as the day befor’. This quote is not in the printed diary but was taken from the original located in Russian State Archive of Military History in Moscow, F. 846, op. 15, Nos. 1-6. It was kindly passed on to me by Dr Dimitry Fedosov. See also Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), p.79.

Service record

POLAND-LITHUANIA, ARMY

Arrived 1659-01-01, as FREETROOPER

Capacity SOLDIER, purpose MILITARY